


For A Pretty Face

by supercanaries



Category: Lexark - Fandom
Genre: Awkward Flirting, F/F, Internal Conflict, clexakru - Freeform, qtwd - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-14
Updated: 2016-03-14
Packaged: 2018-05-26 17:36:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6249178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/supercanaries/pseuds/supercanaries
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Where she was when Alicia fell asleep, there’s nothing but warm fuzzed memories of her face. On the list of things she is never going to mention aloud there is the panic that builds up inside her when she realizes Elyza is gone. It shouldn’t hurt so bad, really. They have been traveling together for barely two weeks, and well, Alicia lost people she’s known for longer. And yet it itches inside like a plague, but it’s probably because she is alone. She doesn’t want to feel lonely in a land of death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For A Pretty Face

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I jumped on the Lexark train, I have no regrets for exploring this world. Anyway, sorry for any mistakes and I apologize if it sucks too bad.

Rationally, Alicia knows that there is no difference between day and night times. Not anymore. The horror lives on, and whether you run in the light of day or surrounded by the deepest darkness, there’s no clock for resting. Sleep comes either when you find shelter or when you’re too tired to care about living or dying anymore. What’s the point of not sleeping if you’re going to faint anyway? They’ll catch up with you either way.

And yet, there’s an irrational part of her that she is definitely not going to talk about with anyone  _ever_ – especially not her recent travel comrade – that is relieved when the sun comes up. The light is comforting and warm and reminds her of everything life was before all of this happened: promising, complicated, messed-up, but still just  _normal_ .

However, today she cannot find the comfort she expects from the sun rising.

Lying in the backseat of a car hidden behind a brush can’t be comfortable, but she’s had worse.

Waking up to the feeling of her back, her legs and her arms cracking can’t be good, but she’s had worse.

Opening her eyes to the stoned feeling of ‘ _did I finally wake up from the nightmare?_ ’ to be crashed a moment later by the realization that it never was, indeed, a nightmare, is as heartbreaking as she’ll never speak aloud, but she’s getting used to it.

Waking up all alone in the middle of it though, that … she hasn’t experienced in a while.

She rubs her eyes with the back of her hands, moans quietly at the feeling of headache and the cold on her bare legs; the sun can’t reach the skin where they’re hidden. Where  _she_ is hidden, because her companion is not around.

Alicia remembers leaving Elyza sitting in the front, smug smirk on her face and an attitude that said ‘I can do without the backseat because I’m a badass gunbitch’ and an a soft almost invisible turn in her blue eyes that confessed quietly ‘I know you are younger and more scared, and I know you need the backseat more than I do’.

Where she was when Alicia fell asleep, there’s nothing but warm fuzzed memories of her face. On the list of things she is never going to mention aloud there is the panic that builds up inside her when she realizes Elyza is gone. It shouldn’t hurt so bad, really. They have been traveling together for barely two weeks, and well, Alicia lost people she’s known for longer. And yet it itches inside like a plague, but it’s probably because she is alone. She doesn’t want to feel lonely in a land of death.

Reaching for the floor, she lifts her phone and stupidly tries to unlock it. Of course it won’t, it ran out of battery a while ago. It’s okay though, no one saw her try. It would have been embarrassing and she’s too smart for this, but the hell with that. No one’s around to make fun of her.

Especially for the way she spends a good fifteen minutes playing with the phone in her hand and pondering. Is she desperate for guessing stupid zombie Terminator Lex went on a very long pee? Is she an idiot for caring? Of course they’ve been building some sort of twisted relationship in which the bitch says something definitely flirty and, well, Alicia tries to hide the way it makes her stomach do weird flips without looking away (because if she looks away, Elyza will tease her for doing so; first day lessons); but this doesn’t mean in any way that they owe each other anything. They haven’t talked about going on together. Elyza probably got bored and …  _ugh_ , it shouldn’t matter and it shouldn’t hurt.  _Fuck that_ .

Kicking the front seat, Alicia sits up and unwraps the hoodie around her waist to wear it and sneak out of her car. Is she being reckless and careless and putting her own life in danger? Sure thing, but damn she better learn how to survive if she’s left alone so, really, better start now. There is not intelligent and explicable reason for which she puts her phone back in her pocket. It’s not like the damn thing is gonna charge itself on flannel. 

There might be a slight tremor in her legs as she walks in the middle of the roadway, but it’s on the list of things she won’t mention. Or think about. She’s not afraid. So. Not. Afraid.

Everything is quiet all around and there’s no way to tell how long the street goes before anything even appears in sight. It’s all trees and creepy lack of sounds and she doesn’t any have any fucking music because her phone died. Apart from the constant fear of dying at any moment though, the walk is rather peaceful. (How annoying is the fact that she can  _literally_ hear Elyza’s stupid snort at her own joke; or that she can hear  _her make that joke_ ? Alicia would tell you that it’s  _astonishingly_ annoying!)

After a while of walking and feeling her stomach make the worst sounds out of hunger, Alicia starts losing her grip over time. She doesn’t know how long she’s been walking and, even when her legs ache, she doesn’t stop. There’s a voice in her head that says it would have been smarter to stay put. There’s a louder voice in her head, though, that says she wouldn’t stay there and wait for Elyza because she suddenly decided to take off without a warning. What if she  _never_ comes back?

By the time there’s a gas station in sight, Alicia has resigned. There’s no point in swimming in an ocean of  _what ifs_ . She’s out, on her own now. That is all.

The door of the gas station is mostly taken down. Once she reaches it, it’s easy to sneak in. 

Now the fact is, she might have developed a bit of claustrophobia lately, considering she feels trapped whenever she is closed somewhere that doesn’t allow her to run if necessary, but damn if she’s hungry. She can’t remember the last time she ate something and every movement is starting to become too much of an effort.

The tables around the cafeteria are dirty and messy, and everything smells so bad that Alicia guesses whatever is left around wouldn’t be a safe meal. But then again, she can’t let herself starve, so she paces around the counter looking for a fridge. 

She finds one. It’s small and almost hidden, but there it is. And inside, there’s ice-cream and brioches and basically just stuff she can eat on the moment. No supplies, great. Her stomach rumbling, though, is quite the motivational push she needs not to give a fuck anymore and just reach for a milk and chocolate brioche. She stands up, closes the fridge and unwraps it, bites it off as she walks around nonchalantly like she owns the place.

That is until she hears something metallic fall onto the floor on the room next door. 

She turns around abruptly, forcing herself to swallow down the piece of chocolate she had in her mouth. By now, Alicia knows better than to ask if anyone's there (C'mon! that's just dumb). Instead, she walks quiet steps behind the counter on the side opposite to the door and grabs the broom nearby. Because of course, someone someone else has the gun.  _She_ always has the gun. She named her gun  _Wanheda_ or something, like that makes sense and- _oh_ , that's definitely not the right thing to think of at the moment.

The infected groans before it's in sight, so Alicia kneels and looks through the small opening in the counter rather than standing there like an idiot. Seriously, what's wrong with people in movies? All eager to die or something? (It sounds smug in her head but she can't take believe her own sarcasm when her fingers are holding on the broom so tight that her knuckles are white and her knees are starting to tremble.)

The steps are as slow as always, but Alicia hears  _it_ come closer. She hears the voice moan and can smell the stench of death. She tells herself that she will go for it, at any time. She'll just jump out of there and hit the fucking thing until it stops moving. Yet, she doesn't do anything except shaking, and panting, and letting her own heartbeat speed up, anxiety rising uncontrollably.

It is when all the infected has to do is to turn around to see her that she hears the shot. 

A loud ringing explosion startling her out of stillness and making her gasp. 

The infected stumbles but accidentally glimpses at her and that is all it needs to hungrily reach for Alicia. Another shot prevents it from touching her, it makes the creature fall to the floor as still as Alicia has rarely seen them. From there, once the blink of her eyelids has cleaned up the unexpected moist in her eyes, she can see the smoking hole on its forehead. 

Without saying anything, she stands up and there her savior is: Elyza Lex.

Her hand is proudly holding  _Wanheda_ in the air, and of course, there is a bright smirk on her face. Only when she catches Alicia, she could swear that some of that smugness has turned into a different emotion. If Elyza wasn't the asshole she is, Alicia could swear it looks like … concern almost.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Elyza asks with a frown, not letting go of her smirk completely. Which results in an expression Alicia would find amusing if she could stand the subject enough to laugh.

_Looking for you_ ? Alicia's mind suggests but her mouth disagrees. So does her pride.

“Eating, for one.” She snaps, maybe childishly. “What are _you_ doing here, mighty Avenger?”

“I was on my way back,” Elyza starts telling as if she was ranting about her day at school, “and I smelled death. So here I am. As I said, _Commander of Death_.”

Alicia definitely thinks she's over her. Her body though, something inside, feels like she is not.

“On your way back?” She asks, with a bit of remorse and guilt.

“Of course, did ya think I'd leave you alone?” Elyza asks, walking to her. “But, babe … I would _never_.” She raises her hands playfully and Alicia looks away, feeling more uncomfortable with her own blushing rather than Elyza's flirting tone.

“What were you up to then?” She asks nervously, still looking away from her as the proximity fears nearly as intoxicating as scary. “Out with some girl? Enjoying the apocalypse?”

The touch of Elyza's fingertips on her chin would startle her if Alicia wasn't so reluctant to give her such satisfaction. Inside though, there is something between her chest and stomach that is shaky and undefinable. Once Elyza's thumb strokes her jaw, Alicia can't look away anymore. So she turns her eyes at her.

“Other girls? Never.” She says teasingly, but there is also a new found softness in her blue eyes. For once, they are not piercing. Yes, delighted; yes, amused; but it's not detached humor. When she winks and her smirks turns into a softer smile, Alicia isn't bothered anymore. She wishes she were, but she's not.

“Where did you go?” She asks more sincerely.

Elyza's fingers leave her face. If it were possible, Alicia would swear her face feels cold from the phantom of her touch.

“On an heroic trip!” Elyza's eyes widen comically and she starts rummaging in her pocket until she hands a phone charger to her. “This one will work, right?”

Alicia's mouth hangs open as it never has before, for she is not an over-dramatic person most of the time.

“You went out in the open, leaving me there all alone, for a phone charger?” She asks in disbelief.

“The things I do for a pretty face.” Elyza teases with an annoying chuckle.

“ _What's wrong with you?!”_ Alicia asks but she reaches for the charger anyway.

“A lot.” Elyza shrugs and lets her take it. “A 'thank you' would be great, by the way.”

Alicia stops where their hands are  _ almost _ still touching and her eyes meet Elyza's once more. Her own lips are just slightly parted when she realizes what has happened. This almost stranger, this extraordinary undead-hunter, beautiful young woman, got off in the middle of the apocalypse, left out of the blue with her gun, to go get her a charger for her phone. She did it  _ for her _ . She went out, risked her life – no matter how smug she is about her own false immortality – for such a silly thing, just for her.

When her chest gets all goosebumps-y and warm, the words leave her mouth uncontrolled.

“Thank you.” She says, in a soft tiny voice she isn't sure she has ever used with anyone else before.

Something over Elyza's features tells her that somehow  _ she knows _ . She knows that Alicia has never been this soft, and she knows more than Alicia herself can tell about this whole mess that is swallowing her up from the inside.

For a tiny moment, the face of this terminator of the infected is as soft as her voice sounded, welcoming, unguarded and gentle. Then Alicia takes a sip of poison, for the world might as well kill her for just breathing at this point. She almost stumbles on her feet as she moves forward and, in a risky jump into the void, she presses the smallest of kisses along Elyza's jaw.

Everything is quiet around them, still in a new way. It's not silent as if the world was ending, but as if they were alone on the planet already, nothing but them.

Once she has come back to her senses, Alicia pulls back from the awkward closeness of the post-smooch and she looks up to meet her eyes. She can feel her own cheeks burn when she recognizes that satisfaction in Elyza's gaze.

“Told ya,” she announces proudly, “no girl can resist.”

Alicia gives her a little push and then walks past her, hiding as best as she can how suddenly overwhelmed she feels. There's a little tug in her chest but when she hears Elyza chuckle and walk behind her, her lips automatically tilt into a smile.

Ah, she's so fucked.

At least she can charge her phone now, though.

 


End file.
